Posted By Christopher Dempsey On February 3, 2012 @ 1:22 pm In General Nuggets,NBA | No Comments

Yes, I know the Clippers were playing their fourth game in five nights on Thursday. Still, contained within the Nuggets’ blowout win were encouraging signs that suggest this team is growing from just being a very successful regular season bunch to a crew capable of winning some playoff games.

What we saw:

Paint Presence

As quiet as it’s kept, Nene has done a more than admirable job patrolling the paint this season, largely in absence of any other consistent threat to help him. Timofey Mozgov changed that against the Clippers. The Russian mixed physical toughness with finesse and gave the Nuggets much-needed punch in the paint, particularly considering Nene was locked up in a battle with block-everything center DeAndre Jordan all night.

Mozgov displayed most everything a solid big man in the pivot should – the ability to finish with both hands, a soft touch around the rim, and a mean streak when he needed it. Mozgov had two blocks and did not miss a shot on his way to 11 points and seven rebounds. He’s improved steadily every week of this season, his first as a no-doubt everyday starter in the NBA.

Spacing

Thank you, 3-point shot. The Nuggets hit 12 of them against the Clippers and here’s why that’s pertinent: It gets the Nuggets back into what they really want to do, and that’s attack the basket. In games where the Nuggets hit 10 or more 3-pointers this season they are now 6-0. Not coincidentally, in those games they also average 30.3 free throw attempts.

Because of the threat of the 3-point shot, Clippers defenders couldn’t sink in on defense pack the lane –which most teams like to do to slow Denver down – and the Nuggets were able to get to the rim a ton. They took 25 shots from the charity stripe as a result of the aggressiveness getting into open spaces in the defense. At their best, this is how simple it can be for the Nuggets offense to run smoothly.

Points off turnovers

In the heart of the game, quarters 1-3, the Nuggets didn’t generate that many points off of turnovers. In fact, they only turned the Clippers over 10 times before things got out of hand in the fourth. Of those 10 turnovers, the Nuggets scored 12 points, a modest total which meant one thing – they were getting conventional stops and turning those into offense. As they march toward the playoffs this is important because when teams take care of the ball and force Denver into more of a five-on-five matchup on both ends of the court, we’ll need to know if the Nuggets can still win. Last year, they couldn’t.

Now, the Nuggets still got out on the fast break, scoring 16 points through three quarters. But the key here is it showed the team didn’t need multitudes of turnovers to still create easy opportunities on the other end. In the playoffs, it’s about being able to win despite your main mode of operation being removed from you. All of this was just a start, to be sure, but a nice one showing the Nuggets might just have it in them.